Magyar Hírek, 1983 (36. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1983-11-12 / 23. szám
jüILk IN MEMORY OF CSANÁD TÓTH COOKING HUNGARIAN'' IN GREAT BRITAIN WINTER SWIMMING IN BUDAPEST I mourn Csanád Tóth aa a member of my own family. His untimely death has been a personal loss to me. I have known few more talented, honest, nicer, and more intelligent persons either in the old country, or overseas. The tenders of human lives have intertwined inseparably on the tree of fate. László Tóth, Csanád Tóth’s father was my first boss and editor in the early thirties. Later I was his son’s first boss and editor at the Hétfői Hírlap, which had a short but turbulent life in October 1956. I took him into the editorial office not without difficulties; I wanted to pay back something of what I owed his father. When I was twentytwo years old, just as Csanád Tóth was in ’56, László Tóth gave space in his newspaper to my sociographic writings, and to other pieces by me which seldom harmonized with the policy of his paper. A victim of trumped up charges, he died in prison in 1951, but even in 1955 and 1956 many people raised difficulties in the way of his son’s carreer. Even though he passed the entrance examinations, he was not allowed to enrol in the directors’ course of the Academy of Dramatic Arts. He wanted to follow the footsteps of his grandfather, who was the manager of the National Theatre. This is why he became a journalist, reporter of great talent —for a few weeks. The tide of the exodus at the end of ’56 also swept him away. He came to see me, to say good by. 1 did not try to hold him back, how could I do that at that time. I embraced him. “Once you will be proud of me, Uncle Iván” — he said. I was sure of that. He graduated in economics from a United States university. He was interested in international affairs. The works of Hungarian sociologists he read in his youth turned his interest towards poor people in Latin America. When I saw him again in 1972 or 1973, he was already one of the directors of the Interamorican Foundation. I met a young, self-conscious, cultured and agreeable man, who was at the beginning of his American career yet never even for a moment forgot that he was Hungarian. I was proud of him even then, and even more proud at the next stage of his career: he became director of the Department of International Organizations in the State Department. He was not yet forty. 1 will never forget the telephone call I received early on the Day of Epiphany, 6th January 1978, the day Saint Stephen’s crown was returned to Hungary. It was Csanád Tóth. He had arrived from Washington in the early hours. He came not only as a highranking official of the American State Department, but also as the private interpreter of Mr Vance, the Secretary of State. I was already aware of the fact that Csanád Tóth had taken a firm stand in his adopted country in newspaper articles, on television, and at the congressional committee of enquiry against those, who wanted to prevent Saint Stephen’s crown getting back to Hungary. In the afternoon I was in the domed hall of the I’arliament House, and saw the tall, athletic, slim figure of my old apprentice journalist, at the side of the American Secretary of State. He translated Mr Vance’s speech without any mistakes, and—fortunately—not sentence by sentence, but thought by thought, in beautifully articulated Hungarian. Since then I have seen him here almost every year in the circle of his family and friends, a living bridge somehow between the two nations, a son of the small nation, who understood our problems, and made them understood, as he explained the ideas of a Great Power of larger dimensions, matters, which he could influence less and less, because the new American administration progressively narrowed the scope of his authority, even though it did not otherwise interfere with his tvork. He did not lose heart, for he was young, no more than forty seven. He was convinced that the future was his also in America, therefore it belonged to all of us, who want to live in peace side by side. I received his last letter in June. In the Library of Congress in Washington, he found an early short story of mine in a volume. He had sent it to me, not being sure if I had it. He meant it as a late present for my birthday, and wrote that even if he had to miss my 70th, he wanted to give the ceremonial address at my 75th.One week later, a heart attack carried him off. The twigs of the tree of life have intertwined with those of the tree of fate so that I, the old man write the obituary of the young friend. His death is a great loss to all Hungarians. IVÁN BOLDIZSÁR When I was about 13 or 14, I broke my leg right at the start of the long summer holiday. What worried me was the thought of forgetting my recently acquired knowledge of swimming and cycling during the two long months Í had to spend in bed. Then my brother came, and consoled me: “Don’t be worried, brother! One just does not forget eating, walking, swimming, or cycling so easily!” Well, this is true of cooking also. I looked with amazement at Mrs János Jusztin, Miss Erzsi Tarjányi, and Mrs János Szabó in the kitchen of the Croydon Hungarian Association, as they rapidly and expertly nipped a great pile of small pasta. Later I had great pleasure in coping with a large helping of paprika chicken there, and the next day, in the Kossuth Klub of Manchester, a good Hungarian-style stuffed chicken for lunch, and paprika lamb stew for dinner, followed by Jászberény roll baked by Mrs József Szélesi. The point is that these ladies, who busily cooked and baked in Croydon, and in the Manchester suburb of Rochdale have long been away from Hungary, and not just for a year or two. And still they have not forgotten to “cook Hungarian”! The explanation may be their ongoing practice. Recipes of "Magyar Konyha" The very reason why we flew across the Channel, why we visited the Hungarian Clubs in Croydon and Manchester was to take some new Hungarian flavours with us, handing them over to the fair ladies of the two clubs. To be more precise, these flavours were taken in the form of recipes by Angela F. Nagy, the editor of the gastronomic journal, Magyar Konyha (Hungarian Cuisine), some of them in the latest numbers of Magyar Konyha, others just in her memory. More than that, she sent some recipes in advance, and these were used in making the paprika chicken in Croydon, and the stewed lamb with paprika in Rochdale. The Angéla F. Nagy processes were amended somewhat in Croydon by Mrs János Jusztin, and in Rochdale by Mrs József Németh, each to her own taste. Next: stuffed cabbage We also carried Hungarian flavours of a different kind in our bag. Kamilla Dévai Nagy sang flower songs, folk songs, and poems for which she had composed the music. The show was compered by Tmre Antal, who also interviewed the president of the Chib, László Ormándy, and Angela F. Nagy on stage. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that only Hungarians are interested in learning the secrets of Hungarian cooking. The gathering at both Croydon and Rochdale was generously sprinkled with real English folk, mostly wives of Hungarians settled there, but also other guests lured there bv the Hungarian flavours. PHOTO: ESZTER REZES MOLNÁR British.television cameras were there Tocussing on the three Hungarian ladies of Croydon. They spied out the finesse of nipping small pasta, and the tricks of chopping up onions, they even looked into the pots and pans in which the chicken were cooked. The dance group of the young Croydon Hungarians, and the show of Kamilla DévayNagy and Imre Antal were also recorded by the television crew. When I asked Erzsiké (Mrs Németh) about the dinner she planned for the next gathering of the Club, she answered: — We have chosen a dish from the most recent issue of Magyar Konyha : next time we will make stuffed cabbage! LÁSZLÓ GARAMI It has been a wonderful summer — time to look forward to some winter swimming. Now do not get me wrong: what I have in mind is neither the noisy schoolchildren, silent aged exercise-seekers and chlorinated water of covered swimming pools, nor the ritual quick dip in very cold water, preferably after literally first breaking the ice, but something that is pure pleasure. It is a pleasure that, before coming to Budapest, I associated, at a distance, with Icelandic geysers. I dare say there are spas elsewhere too where one can swim, and even frolic, out of doors, in pools fed by hot springs, while the air-temperature is well below freezing point, but I doubt that there is anything like it in any other big city. I know of four such pools in Budapest but I believe there are more. The Sports Pool on Margaret Island, and the Császár (lately incorporated in the most modern Komjádi Baths) on the Buda shore of the Danube, opposite the Island, are fed by springs that foimd their own way to the surface, the Széchenyi Baths in the Városliget, the City Park, rely on an artesian well. In the latter there is a pool where the water is kept at a pretty high temperature and one just lounges around, walking in chest-high water, bending one’s knees to let it go higher, talking to one’s fellow bathers, in other words one carries on much as in the pools of the Budapest Turkish baths that were really built by Turks, except that one is not under a cupola, that the sexes are mixed, and costumes or trunks are worn. Another oddity are the floating chess-boards. There is also a pool for swimming, where the water is cooler. The Lukács was not named after György Lukács, though the conversation in the overheated dressing area certainly reminds one more of him than of Saint Luke — Szent Lukács in Hungarian, (the Szent was lost somewhere, in the course of history). I prefer the two sports pools. There is plenty of talent around to be perved on (non-Australians, please look up a Strine Dictionary), true, present and future champion swimmers of either sex tend to use the indoor pools, but they still add to the atmosphere. The secret is that the water heats the air immediately above it. You feel cold as you go in but only in the same way as one docs going swimming in a heatwave. That soon passes and is due to the water being cooled down to make it suitable for swimming. It is a marvellous feeling to float on one’s back and watch snowflakes landing on one’s bare chest or belly, or to swim length after length, knocking off icicles every time one reaches the rail. That is really something to write home about. No visitor to Budapest should miss a winter swim. Or an autumn swim, for that matter, swimming out of doors, watching the trees in their multicoloured finery. RUDOLF FISCHER 29
